Passenger Trains coming back to Timmins ....For what ever it is worth CNC wise....canadatoday.news
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Soon they’ll be on the rails from Toronto to Northern Ontario.
But first, the new Northlander trains are being put to the test.
The three trainsets recently purchased by the provincial government — piggybacking on an order by the federal government — are in use in some areas of North America and being evaluated both outdoors and in an indoor climate chamber to see how they perform in the bitter cold.
Given they’ll be in service by 2026, travelling from Toronto to Timmins and Cochrane, the manufacturer will look at the impact of snow, wind and ice as well as warm summer weather on the units that each include a locomotive and three passenger cars.
“We’ve had several orders from companies like Amtrak, Via Rail, California transport and now Ontario Northland, so it’s becoming a very popular intercity rail product for many reasons,” Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, CEO of Siemens Mobility Canada, told the Star in an interview.
“First and foremost, it’s built here in North America to the highest environmental standards. In terms of energy and carbon footprint and particle emissions, these have the lowest carbon footprint, the lowest particle emissions — greater actually than the EPA standards — so it makes it very popular as governments are trying to fight the climate change,” he said.
“On top of that, the passenger cars are accessible — again, going beyond the government regulated standards, with wheelchair lifts in cars for the accessible bathrooms, wide aisles so a wheelchair can actually go through the car.
“Accessibility standards, as the population is aging, is becoming even more important and so these trends are very well designed from that point of view.”